The Canadian Army in
the 20th Century was patterned after the British Army from whom most
traditions were drawn until Unification in 1968. Authority was
delineated by two types of organizational structures; rank and
appointments.

Ranks

Rank
refers to a basic grade of military promotion; it was a manner of
granting seniority and authority within the Canadian Army. This was
also further accomplished by the use of appointments.

Appointments

An
appointment was a temporary status within a rank; a soldier in an
appointment was holding a particular office or function, for which
he is granted an appropriate rank.

Appointments might have been associated with a formal title and set
of responsibilities, such as the Regimental Sergeant Major of a
unit. These titles and responsibilities may also be associated with
a specific rank; again, a Regimental Sergeant Major was almost
always either a Warrant Officer Class I (between 1915 and
Unification) or a Chief Warrant Officer (after Unification). Other
appointments were not rank specific; for example any
non-commissioned officer could conceivably hold the appointment of
Drum Major. However, the responsibilities of a Chief Warrant Officer
would very much depend on the appointment he held; a Regimental
Sergeant Major would have authority over, and responsibility for,
all non commissioned soldiers in an infantry battalion while a Drum
Major would have responsibility only for the members of his band,
even if both were ranked as Chief Warrant Officer.

History

Within
military organizations, the use of ranks has been almost universal,
with notable exceptions such as the Chinese People's Liberation
Army, the Albanian Army (1970–1991), and the Soviet Red Army
(1918–1935). The use of a formalized system of ranks dates back to
the Romans, and reforms by the consul Gaius Marius in circa 60 BC.

Modern Ranks

The Canadian Army has
always had four basic categories of rank:

Commissioned Officers

Warrant Officers

Non-Commissioned
Officers

Men
(or, more recently, Non-Commissioned Members)

These categories were
themselves often subdivided in various ways, for example Junior NCOs
and Senior NCOs, etc.

Types

Substantive Rank: A soldier confirmed in a permanent rank, fully
paid and confirmed.

Acting
Rank: A soldier assumed the pay and allowances appropriate to the
acting rank, but may have been ordered to revert to a previous
substantive rank held. May have been lacking in training or
experience prerequisites for permanent promotion.

Brevet Rank. A soldier
assumed a rank but without the pay and allowances appropriate to
that rank.

Local Rank. A soldier assumes a
temporary unpaid rank, usually only for a specific operation or
mission.